“Yes, I did indeed,” returned the shepherd earnestly. “I should think you was a angel—or very near,” he added hastily, for at that moment he chanced to thrust his hand into his pocket, and came in contact with something hard and round. “Very near—or, perhaps—I mid say—” “I mid ha’ been summat very like a angel,” replied Ann-Car’line, squatting back on her heels and looking at him seriously. “I mid ha’ been a fairy.” Here she lowered her voice and looked round cautiously. “What do you mean?” enquired Timothy, stooping over her and speaking in the same tone. “Hush! It’s a secret. Don’t let mother hear ye!” The shepherd straightened himself again. “Ah, you’ve got secrets,” he said dispassionately; “yes, young maids has secrets what they don’t like the wold folks to hear on. But secrets is dangerous, my girl.” And thereupon Timothy fingered the watch once more. “There, what be so long a-doin’ for?” called out a sharp female voice from within the cottage. “I could ha’ cleaned that doorstep forty times while thou’rt thinkin’ on it.” Ann-Car’line gathered up pail and brush, and hastened indoors, leaving Timothy to meditate on her mysterious words as he made his way towards the fold. He frowned as he walked along, and struck at the hedge savagely with his crook. “Fairies is nonsense-folk!” he exclaimed aloud once and again; “I can’t think as thikky maid can be so artful as she do seem.” On the following Sunday, by some accident, he found himself next her in church, and, perceiving that he had no hymn-book, Ann-Car’line was kind enough to permit him to share hers. She looked as fair and innocent as a flower, and sang with all her heart. Timothy was quite carried away. Artful indeed! There wasn’t her match in the whole county of Dorset for looks, and he’d go warrant she was as good as she seemed. When they emerged from the church he asked her to walk with him, and before half an hour had passed had begun to court her in form. He actually forgot, for the time being, all about the watch and his suspicions connected with it, and it was not until Ann-Car’line had unexpectedly broken a somewhat long and contented silence by a fragment of some gay little song—not a hymn-tune—that he remembered the phrase which had so much puzzled him a few days before. “What was that you was a-sayin’ about bein’ a fairy?” he enquired, abruptly. Ann-Car’line’s little white teeth flashed out in a mischievous smile. “I was axed once if I’d like to be a fairy,” said she. “Don’t ye think I’d make a very good one?” “There’s no such folks as fairies,” returned Timothy. “Nobody couldn’t ha’ axed ye such a thing.” “They did though!” retorted Ann-Car’line. “Says they, ‘You be a pretty maid—you’d make a very good fairy. Would you like to be one?’”